30 
BULLETIN 463, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The force employed should vary with the haul length, usually from 
150 feet to 600 feet. Six to eight scrapers should be employed where 
the haul exceeds 250 feet. Where necessary one of the snatch teams 
may be used to assist the plow team. 
Such an outfit should move from 200 to 250 cubic yards of earth 
per 10-hour day. 
Several types of dump wagons are used in road-grading work. 
Probably the most common is the ordinary farm wagon fitted 
with a slat-bottomed bed as illustrated in figure 14. The most 
usual capacity for wagons of this kind is about 1J cubic yards. 
Patent dump wagons (fig. 18) are made in sizes ranging from 1 to 
3 cubic yards capacity, and. in general, are preferable to the slat- 
bottomed wagons, because they 
are turned around more easily 
in a short space and are much 
more easily dumped. Patent 
dump wagons of the size em- 
ployed ordinarily in road work 
(1J cubic yards capacity) sell 
at an average price of about 
$150, f. o. b. factory, which is 
a relatively high cost as com- 
pared to farm wagons, the price 
of which seldom exceeds about 
$50 or $75. One-horse carts are 
used sometimes instead of wag- 
ons, but two-wheeled vehicles 
are very severe on horses, espe- 
cially when hauling over rough ground, and therefore the use of 
carts is not recommended. 
Where wagons are used for hauling and the excavation is fairly 
light, it is customary and economical to loosen the material with 
plows and to load it into the wagons with hand shovels. If the exca- 
vation is fairly heav\' and sufficient in amount to warrant the addi- 
tional outlay, it is economical sometimes to employ a small steam 
shovel (fig. 19) for loosening and loading the material. The steam 
shovels used ordinarily in road work have a dipper capacity of from 
one-half to three-fourths of a cubic yard. Under fairly favorable 
conditions steam shovels of these sizes can be made to load from 400 
to 500 cubic } 7 ards of stiff earth per 10-hour day. 
Where the material is loosened by means of plows and hauled in 
wagons the average small grading gang may consist of 1 foreman, 
3 laborers, and 2 teams for plowing, 9 laborers for loading, 2 laborers 
for spreading, and a sufficient number of teams for hauling to 
Fig. 18. — Dump wagon. 
OPRRE3757 
